Ah, summer is busy! Look for Ash in a couple of ads coming up! And looks for us in fried chicken houses across America. From Dinastia China to Bon Chon, we love our fried chicken. Ahem. Anyhoo, this time, instead of mentioning other stuff we like from our collection, we'll talk about some stuff we're looking forward to, and maybe some stuff we're listening to right now.

Sam Phillips - Don't Do Anything - we have the BIGGEST crush on Sam, nee Leslie, Phillips. She of the nasal deadpan heartbreak. And this is her first non-T-Bone-Burnett produced album, but it's going to be so cool. The few songs we've heard are absolutely brilliant and offkilterly Tom Waits on cognac. We can't wait.

Ron Sexsmith - Exit Strategy of the Soul - So we're totally torn. On the one hand, Ron Sexsmith is genius and every album is like a masterclass in pop songwriting. On the other hand, another album with Martin Terefe, is like a little too much of a good thing. Martin's as clever as Froom/Blake, and a bit more refined than Steve Earle was, but he's also a tight-compression-beat-thing dude, and that's just so different for those of us who were weaned on Other Songs.

We've also been listening the heck out of the few songs on the new My Morning Jacket, passed to us through the great musical friend network. Evil Urges is amazingly brave, at least the bits we've heard, and we're thrilled to hear the modernity breaking through, and the crew's stepping off into new language. You hear a lot more of the shameless love of melody and pop in the new album. We can't wait to hear the rest.

Also, we've been spinning the new Ladytron, "Ghosts" is amazing! Plus we love both leading Ladytrons. So petulant, dark, and cute. And The Kills - Last Days of Magic, and the Raveonettes, whose new one we don't quite get as much as their last, but still, always, so fatalistically romantic.

Speaking of romantic and modern, we've also been listening a lot to Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev is just so great in terms of sound palette and melody. We've been watching that animated short too, Peter and the Wolf--letting it all soak into our new recordings.

So we have some new working titles for our songs. Words like nightshade. Lots more gut-strings than before.

More soon!

cheerios!

Misha